1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the processing of transactions over the Internet and, more particularly, the invention relates to using an information service to provide customer information, including payment information, to a third party Internet merchant.
2. Description of the Related Art
Consumers today routinely shop and make purchases of products and services over the Internet using web browsers. Numerous Internet merchants have set up web sites allowing customers to browse through descriptions of products and services. After the customer has selected one or more products for purchase, Internet merchants typically provide the customer with a checkout page requesting payment information from the customer. The payment information usually comprises a credit card number, expiration date, cardholder name, and any other information that may be required to authorize a charge against the customer's card. If applicable, shipping information may also be requested on the checkout page.
It is often considered an inconvenience for a customer to have to enter in the often lengthy amount of information required to process a credit card transaction each time the customer makes a purchase. As a consequence, a number of merchants allow the customer to select a user ID and a password when providing payment and/or delivery information. The merchant catalogs the customer's information and associates it with the user ID and password. In this manner the customer only needs to enter in her user ID and password in order to make subsequent purchases. Customers typically, however, make purchases from more than one merchant. Different merchants may have different formats for a user ID and a password. Furthermore, a customer's preferred user ID may already be in use by another customer at a particular merchant. Consequently, a customer will likely have to remember several user IDs and/or passwords.
Another solution to the inconvenience of filling out lengthy forms, called a wallet or digital wallet, has been suggested. A digital wallet typically comprises a small software layer that functions in conjunction with a web browser on the customer's computer. The wallet stores customer payment and/or delivery information on the customer's computer and provides the information to merchants using a standardized protocol upon the direction of the customer. Many customers, however, consider the process of downloading, installing, and configuring the wallet software too complicated, time consuming or burdensome.
Another advance is the advent by Amazon.com of 1-Click™ shopping. With this feature, the user initially specifies a credit card, shipping address, shipping method, and/or other default information to be used for 1-Click purchases, and can thereafter purchase items with a single mouse click. The 1-Click feature involves placing an identifying cookie on the customer's computer. The customer's web browser returns the cookie to Amazon.com's web server when the web site is accessed. The web server can then read the cookie to identify the customer and present to the customer a web page with the option of purchasing a product with a single click using the information already on file. Additional details of the 1-Click feature are set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,411, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Other solutions (see, e.g. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,715,314 and 5,815,665) involve the use of a third party payment or brokering service. The customer first registers with the payment or brokering service. The payment or brokering service can then authenticate the customer during subsequent transactions with merchants. The payment or brokering service bills the customer for each authorized transaction and provides payments to the merchants. These solutions, however, interpose a third party into the payment process between the customer and the merchant.